AI, AI, oh

[Oldbaldguy]

What with all the recent hubbub about AI taking over the air to air mission, I have a question.  Is the plan to leave all the flying to the black boxes or will, at least initially, there still be a mammalian overseer on board?  I ask this because most pilots worthy of their ticket loath riding shotgun.  Let it be known that I am a pilot but not a zipper-suited sky god like some.  Still, when jinking about on a fine day, I much prefer being the jinker vice a hapless jinkee strapped in nearby because the ride is so much better.  I know what I am going to do so I am already ready when I do it whereas whoever else is riding along is always a tick or so behind both me and the airplane.  This can be both annoying and uncomfortable.  Imagine, if you will, a time when a rated fighter pilot has little more to do in a dog fight than clench his butt cheeks and grunt like he is passing a watermelon because his airplane is doing all the work without his help or permission.  Not only is this morally wrong but who in their right mind would voluntarily do such a thing?  Who would ride shotgun to a clockwork gizmo without complaint?  Certainly not any fighter pilot I know.  And at the end of the day, who gets busted if the fight goes wrong?  Will they ground the computer?  Not likely.  And what happens if Otto gets all full of himself and, in the heat of the moment, pulls enough Gs to turn the onboard minder into so much currant jelly?  Then what?  I am old and fuddly but I see nothing good coming of all this AI stuff.  Airplanes are born with sticks and rudder pedals and throttles and places for a person to sit for a reason - they are there for real people to poke and wiggle in order to maintain controlled flight above the ground and for good folks like us to model and argue about.  Anything else is Armageddon.

[Pete Fleischmann]

Because I am armpit deep in this topic as a research test pilot at the OPL, I can tell you the current plan is for autonomous wingmen with a manned aircraft leading the formation…for now-

 

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[thierry laurent]

Indeed. The IA will know the limits of the human body. We can see the current trend in many other sectors: IA will not fully replace the human being soon. It is rather used as an assistant. Similarly, at a minor level, plane computers are already designed for decades to avoid some too dangerous moves. To see things from another level, do not forget air warfare is radically changing. It looks dogfighting will very probably become an obsolete situation in a very large majority of cases. We are entering into network centric warfare in which generally both enemies do not see each other except via a digital screen... I'm sure at some step most combat planes will be replaced by drones and in that case the 'pilot' - if we still have some- will only be sitting with a VR helmet in an office. There are disruptive technologies that have an impact on aviation and this is not new. A technology marvel like the Valkyrie project was stopped when the USAF realized the cheaper ICBM-SLBM would become the main nuclear dissuasion vectors. This is just one example among dozens and I'm convinced military aviation will still change radically up to the end of the century... Finally, when we look at the evolution of aviation for the last 50 years, one may think it noticeably slowed down. I'm not sure anyone in 1974 would have considered normal to mainly use platforms designed in 1924...

[ScottsGT]

I think your scenario will be short lived because as AI takes over through time, where will we find that experienced pilot taking a back seat to AI?  Can’t get that experience if AI was doing it long before new pilot joined up.